


Ablutions

by Bexless



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), American Idol RPF
Genre: Facial Shaving, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 14:00:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/927323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bexless/pseuds/Bexless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Don't call it a beard." Kris jabbed a finger at him. "That's not a beard."</p><p>"It's totally a beard." Adam stroked it, stung. <i>You're totally a beard.</i></p><p>"Gandalf has a beard," Kris said. "You have a problem."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ablutions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slackmouth](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=slackmouth).



> Wish fulfillment fic brought on by Adam's cruel refusal to shave. Kradam is still relevant in 2013 if I say it is. 
> 
> What? Doesn't everyone take a year's break from fic and then write a pairing they don't enjoy, featuring a character they don't like, with all sorts of annoying features like surprise!divorce that usually really piss them off? HYPOCRITES R US.
> 
> For Slackmouth, who said, 'WRITE ME KRADAM IN WHICH KRESUS SHAVES HIM PORNILY KTHX 20K WORDS GREAT KTHX'
> 
> ....One out of three? :D? /o\
> 
> Many thanks to mrsronweasley!

Kris was in Adam's apartment, which was weird and unexpected.

"Kris!" said Adam. "You're in my apartment!"

"I am," Kris confirmed. He didn't offer any further explanation. He was standing in Adam's living room holding a plastic grocery bag. 

Adam, who had just got in himself, put down his coffee and took off his sunglasses. "I mean, not that I'm not glad to see you or anything."

"Are you?" said Kris. "Glad to see me?"

Adam thought about it. "I'm mystified, anyway."

"That's not a very nice thing to say to a friend."

"Well, I guess I'd be more pleased if it had happened without breaking and entering."

"I didn't break in," Kris scoffed. "Your mom was here."

Adam clicked his tongue. "I should really fire her."

"You should really not need your mom to buy and install your toilet paper," Kris pointed out, "but that's not what I came here to talk about."

"But my toilet paper is such an interesting subject!" Adam shrugged his jacket off and slung it over a chair. Then he changed his mind and went into the bedroom to hang it up. It was a really nice jacket. "There are people who would pay a lot of money for my toilet paper," he called over his shoulder. "Used, even."

"You are gross," Kris said, following him. "And so is your face."

" _Your_ face," said Adam, playing along.

Kris shook the bag at him menacingly. "I'm not jokey-insulting you this time! I mean it. Your face. It's gross."

"I'm officially downgrading myself from 'mystified' to 'irritated'," Adam said, folding his arms. "You show up at my place after months with barely a text message to tell me my face is gross? Are you having a _Falling Down_ moment?"

"Yes," said Kris. "Falling down your face. I mean seriously, Adam. Do you look in the mirror?"

"Once or twice a minute."

"And your eyes," Kris said, brow furrowed with concern. "They're okay? Are you getting them tested regularly?"

"My eyes are fine," Adam said. "My friends, on the other hand..."

"Did they talk you into this?" Kris demanded. "One of your insane Panem Capitol friends?"

"...No," Adam said. "But one of my District Twelve friends is walking on some mighty thin ice."

"Mining is hardly the dominant industry in Arkansas," Kris said witheringly. "I'm totally from District Eleven."

"Rue's district? You wish, Red State."

"They grow grain!"

"They grow grain in District Nine too."

"But nobody knows anything about District Nine."

"Nobody knows anything about Arkansas," Adam pointed out. "Except that it produces short, annoying men who steal my talent-show titles and insult me in my home."

"I don't have time for flirting," Kris said. He dumped the contents of the bag out on Adam's bed, and then held each item up for his inspection. "Razor, shaving foam, and look, I even got some of that moisturising crap you like."

Adam grabbed it and read the label. "Well, we agree on one thing. This is crap."

Kris frowned. "It has aloe vera."

"It has _parabens_!" Adam waved the tub in Kris' face. "Do you even know what parabens are?"

"Do you?"

"I know I don't want them on my face!"

"I have seen you put way worse things on your face."

Adam didn't contest that point. "Is that what this is about, then? My beard?"

"Don't call it a beard." Kris jabbed a finger at him. "That's not a beard."

"It's totally a beard." Adam stroked it, stung. _You're totally a beard._

"Gandalf has a beard," Kris said. "You have a problem."

"I have a problem?" Adam stared at him. "You just travelled one and a half thousand miles to tell me you don't like my facial hair!"

"I _really_ don't like it," Kris stressed.

"Evidently! And why did you buy all this shit, anyway? Like I don't have shaving stuff of my own?"

"Do you?" Kris said. "Because I was starting to think you were being mercilessly targeted by a very specific thief."

"I - okay." Adam pinched the bridge of his nose. "If I say I'll shave, will you go away?"

"No," Kris said. "I'm not leaving until that thing does."

"...fine," Adam said. "But I'm not using that drugstore shit."

*

In the bathroom, Kris sat on the counter and bitched his way through Adam's whole routine.

"You wanted me to shave, I'm shaving," Adam said from inside the shower. "That means softening the bristles first."

"That doesn't explain why you hairbrushed your entire body before you even got in there."

"It's part of the process!" Adam put down his cleansing bodywash and picked up the moisturising one. "Don't fuck with my process, man."

Once he'd exfoliated, rinsed out his conditioner, and finished with a freezing blast to close the cuticles and shrink pores, Adam shivered his way into a towel and reached for the old, grey T-shirt on the back of the door.

"Um," said Kris, as Adam wrapped it around his head.

"Towels cause frizz," Adam informed him, and spent an extra long time squeezing excess water out of his hair. Then he tipped his head upside down and raked some serum through it, before slathering himself in body lotion, deodorising, and inspecting his eyebrows for a good ten minutes. “God, I’m going to have to tint these again soon. Why does every hair on my body grow so god damned fast? I’m like Desperate friggin’ Dan.”

“Oh, you have such problems, Rapunzel.” Kris passed a self-conscious hand over his own hair.

Adam eyed him critically. “You can get stuff for that, you know.”

"This is so not about me,” Kris said. He gestured at Adam’s face. “Are you done?”

"Are you in my house demanding I arrange my facial hair to please you?" Adam clattered around in the cabinet. 

"Not to please me," Kris said. "To please the world, Adam."

Adam rolled his eyes. "I don't see the world creepily watching me complete my toilette."

"They would given the chance," Kris said. "But not everyone has the same chances in life, Adam. I guess I'm still a missionary at heart, you know? I can't just sit back when I know there's something I could be doing to help."

"Yeah, you're a giver." Adam rubbed oil between his palms.

"I'm like Jesus," Kris mused. "In a way. Hey, that smells good."

"Rosemary," Adam said, smoothing it over his cheeks, chin and jaw. "No parabens."

"Oh, well," Kris said, smiling a little. "Perish the thought."

Adam wiped his hands off and grabbed the edge of the sink, bracing himself there for a minute. He bounced on his toes a few times. "You know, this is pretty weird, Kris."

"It is, huh." Kris looked down at his hands, twisting them together. "It didn't used to be."

"That was then," Adam said gently. "We're not close anymore. I don't know what's going on in your life, we don't know each other's schedules, you don't know who the last person I slept with was."

Kris raised an eyebrow. "That's how you measure friendship?"

Adam shrugged one shoulder. "It was just an example."

"I do know, anyway," Kris said confidently. "It was Sauli. Right?"

Adam looked at him for a second. "Sure." His own reflection smirked at him in the corner of his eye. 

"I'm sorry it didn't work out with you two," Kris said.

"Thanks." Adam bumped his knee, and reached for his razor.

Kris gave him kind of a Look. "Your turn."

"For what?"

"To say you're sorry about me and Katy."

Adam frowned. "What about you and Katy?"

"We're divorced."

"What!?" Adam dropped the razor and stared at him. "Since when? Why? How did I not know about this?"

"I don't know!" Kris spread his hands. "Maybe you had beard in your eye."

"But I - how could - are you okay?" Adam let his hand rest fully on Kris' knee this time. "God, Kris, I'm so sorry!"

Kris shrugged a little. "I'm okay. We'll be okay. We're friends, you know?"

Adam rubbed his knee. "Is that what this is about? Are you having a crisis?"

"No," Kris said. He twisted his hands some more. "Maybe? I don't know, I was just looking at a picture of you and suddenly I really hated that beard."

Adam raised his hands over his head, triumphant. "You called it a beard!"

Kris laughed, shaking his head. "I call it an atrocity."

"You're mean," Adam said, but he picked up the razor again. "Ugh, I can't believe I'm doing this. I just dyed it two days ago."

"Your problems are numerous," Kris said, patting his shoulder.

"What the hell," Adam pressed down with the razor. "It'll grow back."

"Not on my watch," Kris said.

 

Adam shaved steadily, pausing at the obligatory goatee stage to see what he would look like as his own evil twin. He cocked a hopeful eyebrow at Kris, but got only a stern shake of the head in response. He sighed and pressed on, almost done when he felt tentative fingers on his shoulder.

"Can I?"

Adam hesitated, but Kris had this look on his face, the same look he'd had when he'd asked Adam to paint his thumbnail for him, a million years ago. A lot had changed since then, but Adam's ability to say 'no' to cute guys was apparently not one of them.

He handed the razor over, and moved to stand in between Kris’ thighs. Kris' blunt fingertips cradled Adam’s jaw, tilting his head. Kris' brows drew together and his tongue pressed into his cheek: his concentrating face.

"You know," said Adam, as Kris rinsed the razor under the faucet, "in some cultures, shaving someone else is considered deeply erotic."

Kris half-smiled. "In Adam culture?"

"Baby, everything's erotic in Adam culture." Adam closed his eyes against the harsh bathroom light. "Root canals. Drain snakes. Tuna."

"Mmm, tuna," said Kris. "Sexy, sexy, tuna."

“I’ll sexy tuna you,” Adam said. He rolled his lips in and let Kris drag the razor under his nose. “You could just leave me a soul patch.”

“Not in good conscience,” Kris said. He rinsed the razor again, then made the last few strokes over Adam’s chin. He put the razor down, picked up a towel and patted Adam’s face with it, gently. “All done.”

“In Neanderthal World,” said Adam. “Moisturise me, bitch.”

Kris rolled his eyes. “With what?”

“The blue bottle.”

Kris picked it up and shook out some goop into his palm. He rubbed it between his hands briskly, then started rubbing it into Adam’s skin, moving from his cheekbones down to his jaw with short, steady strokes.

“You can see my scars this way,” Adam said.

Kris made a soft, meaningless noise. His warms hands felt nice, smoothing the lotion over Adam’s damp, sensitive skin. Then his fingers skidded up the sides of Adam’s face and snaked into his hair.

Adam jerked back. “You’ll make it greasy.”

“After all that other shit you put in it?”

“That was specially formulated!”

“Will you just shut up for a minute?” Kris plucked at Adam’s forelock, tugging until it fell over his forehead, skirting his eye. “There you are,” he said, and smiled.

“Kris-”

“I know,” Kris said, pulling his hands back. “Long ago and far away.”

“Long ago,” Adam agreed. He laid his hands on Kris’ knees. “Not so far away.”

They eyeballed each other for a moment. Adam supposed he should have felt self-conscious and exposed, standing there in a towel and no make-up. But mostly he just felt kind of cold. Also his hair was starting to dry weird.

“I have to-” he said, and Kris pulled back, folding his arms across his own chest.

“No, yeah,” he said, looking down. “Of course.”

 

Once he was fully-clothed and beanie-hatted, Adam was annoyed to find himself more confused, not less. He padded into the living room to find Kris standing there, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot in front of Adam’s framed records.

“I’m just now starting to realize that this is completely insane,” he said slowly.

Adam laughed, leaning against the counter. “Don’t sweat it. I was gonna have to shave it for _Glee_ anyway.”

“Oh right,” Kris said. “Your favorite show.”

“Shut up,” said Adam. “Things change.”

“Yeah,” Kris said heavily. “Well, I should go.”

Adam saw him to the door. Kris stood there wavering. Adam said, “You know – we can hang out, Kris.”

Kris’ eyes darted around. “What?”

“You and me. We can hang out, just call me, whatever.”

“I don’t have your number,” said Kris, like it was the end of the world.

“Fixable.” Adam programmed it into Kris’ phone, then handed it back to him. 

Kris looked down at the phone, rubbing the edges of it with his fingers. “You’re always so nice to me.”

“Yeah, well.” Adam folded his arms and leaned against the jamb. “I like you.”

“Even when I show up unannounced and subject you to forced grooming?”

Adam laughed. “Even then. But maybe next time you could just bring over a six-pack or something.”

Kris nodded, solemnly. “No parabens.”

They didn’t put parabens in beer, Adam was pretty sure, but he let it slide.

 

When Kris had gone, Adam went into his room and pulled his hat off. His hair was a flat disaster, and Adam scowled at it, trying to wrestle it into something respectable. He really didn’t want to have to get it wet again to blowdry it, but – oh. When he let it flop forward, the way Kris had done in the bathroom, that looked okay. 

Well.

Maybe he would wear his hair down for the rest of the day.


End file.
